Welcome to the Centre for Critical Development Studies (CCDS)

A warm welcome from the Center for Critical Development Studies (CCDS) at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)! The CCDS is the administrative home of our excellent International Development Studies (IDS) programs, now celebrating their 30th anniversary.

The CCDS community is committed to teaching and research in development studies that contributes to an understanding and mitigation of processes, policies, and practices that reproduce conditions of poverty, inequality, and oppression around the world.

Our approach is 'critical', grounded in historically-informed cross-disciplinary research, pedagogy, and dialogue with a central focus on the poor and less powerful majority who find themselves most adversely affected by exclusionary power relations and practices. We feel that this approach best prepares students to become effective members of the development community.

Stay connected

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.